The Absurd Word Nerd's 2018 Retrospective

I keep paralyzing myself with thoughts of what I could write on here. I have struggled to write this, to write anything, for a long time now. I am probably overthinking it, but that's what I do with most things, so it's to be expected.
I don't know if I should be bitter or happy or angry or upset. When it comes to summarizing the year, it seems as though I should feel something. Unfortunately, life isn't that simple.

One of the benefits of narrative is that every story can have a point. There is, in fact, a grand designer and creator behind everything, and you can see the meaning of their world hidden beneath the surface. But, life doesn't have meaning or purpose, unless we give it some kind of meaning and purpose. I covered this in my post The Meaning of Life, an Analysis - life has no inherent meaning, but it can inherit meaning.
But, that's life in the broad-strokes, one lifetime. What about smaller portions of a lifetime, a literal slice of life? Is there meaning in a year of one's life? What about a month? A week? A day? An hour?
How small do we have to dissect our lives before we reach a moment that is truly meaningless?
Can we ever reach such an indivisible moment, or is every moment pregnant with the potential that a life can have?

I am not being poetic, I don't actually know the answer to these questions. It probably depends on the person, and the moment. However, in this moment, where I am summarizing this year from my perspective, this year doesn't seem to have any meaning. I'm not saying there weren't highs and lows - on the contrary, this year saw me finding work, and balancing my mental health as well as losing my last and dearest grandparent, Iris Jarrett, my maternal grandmother.
I never mentioned it on here because I didn't want to turn my grandmother's death into a blog post. Not only did I not feel like I could represent what she meant to me in a single post, but I was also grieving quite a lot - a lot more than I expected to.

But, this also saw some greater independence on my part. My parents had bought a caravan, and had begun traveling with it. This meant more time to myself, time which I often used for relaxation, but occasionally used for writing.
Of course, I now find myself looking at the first post of this year, Closing the Book on 2017. As is tradition here, I had three pseudo-resolutions for this year:

1. I wanted to complete my GameBlog
2. I wanted to conclude Duke Forever
3. I wanted more of my writing Published

Since two of those were related to this blog, it's pretty obvious how far they've come, but allow me to reassure you, I haven't had any more of my writing published either. That's right, I'm zero for three.
I could spend time explaining why, but honestly, I doubt you care. I barely care, and I'm the one ashamed that I've once again failed to fulfill my own yearly wishes.
This hasn't happened to me since 2014's failed fulfillment followup.

This being the case, I have no option really but to do what I did then, and repeat my resolutions. My promises aren't broken if I just postpone them.
Y'know what, looking back on this year, I've decided what it was to me and this blog:
2018 - The Year the Writing didn't Flow.

I started the year wanting to write my Duke stuff, and didn't. I tried to work on my GameBlog, and didn't. I finally came back swinging with my Halloween Countdown, but due to a mistake at the eleventh hour, I had to scrape something new together, barely posted it all on time, and felt exhausted afterwards, unable to write anything since.

Part of that is because it's summer, and I can't write in summer - too hot - I'm sitting in my father's study with the air conditioner blasting, just so I can write this. But, for the most part it's because I went from a blogging walking pace to a literary sprint with little-to-no preparation. It left me feeling well and truly drained, and despite having several plans for stuff I wanted to write in the immediate aftermath, I was left stumbling for quite a while afterwards.
This blog post is literally the first thing I've managed to write in two-and-a-half months.

Anyway, another problem that stories have over life in general is that stories tend to have a final page and a definitive conclusion, but I don't know the conclusion for this year.
Yes, today is the last day of the year, but so what? I don't know. Perhaps that's the feeling I'll have the enter into the coming year with. A general malaise, due to not feeling like I've accomplished anything this year. I hope your 2018 was better than mine, and let's all vow to try better next year.

Uh . . . bye for now, I guess. See you next year.

Closing the Book on 2017

Today is the New Year's Morrow - the Second of January, 2018. One of the many days in the coming year, but I'm not all that excited for it, to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I'm not dreading it, but I don't really feel all that great. It's another year, another day. I seem to be percolating a nostalgic melancholy.
However, I do appreciate a good milestone, an opportunity to look at how far we've come, and maybe even have a glimpse at where we're going.

See, last month, I was wondering if I should even "do" a New Years post, since I don't always do them, and I don't even really have resolutions.
But then, I remembered my blog post for last year: New Year's Retribution.
I made a promise there, to write posts specifically against the horrible shit that happened in 2016. Now, I didn't actually plan to, since after that rant, I didn't have too much to say. However, I did respond to all three of the points I made.
In opposition to ISIS in 2016, and how religious bigotry had lead to meaningless murder and pain, I wrote a post about the folly of religion that I called Your God Does Not Exist.
In opposition to Racism in 2016, and how it was lending to xenophobia and hatred, I wrote a post about racism in horror, and how it is dying out in a post called Hatecraft.
In opposition to Trump in 2016, and how it lead to unrelenting stupidity and ignorance, I wrote a post about skepticism and how we can be smarter, called Skepticism 101.

However, this year wasn't so horrifying. It had its moments, but nothing like 2016, so whereas in 2017 I wanted retribution for the things the previous year had done to me . . . this year, I want to make reparations for the things I've done to myself in the year prior.
See, in looking back at the year, I've started to realize how often the things that disappoint me about my blog, are caused by me - or uncaused by me, as the case may be.

The GameBlog, that was a blogging event I promised almost five years ago, in Late Spring Cleaning, yet that's still scarcely even been attempted.
Duke Forever, has fallen drastically by the wayside. I have recontextualized it several different times, and at present moment, I feel as though I will barely finish Volume One.
I've even looked back on the posts in the past where I've promised upcoming posts . . . and absolutely failed to deliver.
And on a more personal level of my writing journey, I have not had very many of my stories published, even though that is a large goal of mine.

I keep doing this to myself, and I don't like it, since even though you, as my readers, are often either complacent enough, or not vocal enough to complain about these unfulfilled blogging/writing plans - I'm self-critical enough to feel the weight of those unfulfilled promises, nonetheless.

So, for this year, my goal is to rectify these mistakes:

• I want to write my GameBlog, and publish it on this website
• I want to try to bring Duke Forever towards some kind of conclusion
• I want to have some of my longer writing Published.

Now, three seems to be the traditional number of goals I do for these things, but that's because these are my writing goals. I also have the goals of living healthier; getting a job; finding a girlfriend . . . and whilst all of these are fun, I don't think they are as relevant to you, since I don't really talk about that on the blog.

Ironically, getting Published is the easiest part, since I already have set those plans in motion, and I have some anthologies and magazines in mind, as well as stories to write for them. And if all of those plans fail, I have many fallback plans to get back on my feet.
I have high hopes for the GameBlog, but I know it will be quite difficult, as in previous attempts I experienced how hard it is to structure a branching story. But, I have a plot idea, so I have my fingers crossed.
But, the hardest of all will be Duke Forever. I have struggled with that story the most, because I've written it for so long that my writing abilities have exceeded what they were when I began to write it, so its hard to face that story once again. However, I don't like the idea of leaving it unfinished. I recognize that I will never write as much as I originally planned, but I want to bring the current volume to its conclusion. I owe that much to my readers but, moreso, I feel like I owe that much to the Duke. It's not the character's fault that I wrote him when I was younger and more prone to simple mistakes. And, even though it will require a lot of time on my part, and I'm not even sure how many people still enjoy my fanfiction blogserial . . . I still like the stories I have planned for Volume One.
The future stories? Later Volumes? They could be cannibalized into other stories I write. But, that's another story for another day. For now, if I can just finish this one volume, then I can be happy with it.

At least, that's what I tell myself . . .

Also, I liked my "at least one per month" writing goal, however, I have one simple, little goal in regards to blog-writing. I want to write more this year than I did last year. Sounds simple enough, let's see if I can pull it off.

I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and it seems as though I've left some threads unsewn, some knots untied. I plan to rectify that, this year, starting by writing some short stories for upcoming anthologies. I'll let you know how that all pans out . . .
Until next time, what are your goals for the upcoming year, and do they have anything to do with your writing? Let me know in the comments section, and I hope you've had a Happy New Year.

Healing Diary: Just Write it Out

Today is the day after Anzac's Day. I feel the need to mention that, because I've noticed that for all of this year, I have only been writing blog posts for holidays. Hell, the only reason I didn't post this yesterday is because when I came home yesterday, my PSU was fried, and I needed to head out this morning to buy a new one. And yeah, sure, I posted the New Years one twelve days late, and the Valentine's Day one early, but it is a worrying trend. I don't even like ANZAC Day that much, but this ANZAC day, I felt the need to post.
I promised myself I would write at the very least one blog post per month. But at this rate, you should expect just eight more posts for Cinco de Mayo, Winter Solstice, NAIDOC Week, World Elephant Day, Australian Citizenship Day, Halloween, World Toilet Day & Christmas. But I am not going to do that (except maybe NAIDOC Week, if I remember), because it feels insincere. For that same reason, there's no Word of the Day today, I am just here to write, because I need to write. I don't know what I need to say, but I do need to write . . .

The reason I have been so scant on my posts is because I am having some issues with mental health. Ever since my girlfriend broke up with me, I haven't been well. I am not in the doldrums about being single, and I am certainly not bitter about it, it's actually a lot simpler than that. I used to talk to my ex every day, but now that I don't, the amount of socializing that I do with others has been drastically reduced. I am naturally anxious with introverted tendencies, and I do not actively seek out social interaction, so whilst I used to just talk to her all the time, now I don't, meaning that I am not getting a healthy amount of interpersonal interaction.

See, some people that are introverted, they say that they need some alone time to "recharge", they like alone time because it allows them to be themselves, whereas extroverted people feel more energized when they are around others. I am not sure if I buy that - or if I do, I just don't fit the stereotype - because personally I feel good when I am around other people, I need to be around other people to socialize and have fun, but if I spend too long around other people I feel restricted. I don't like to relax at the best of times, I've even made a note of that in this blog, with references to how it relates to my anxiety. But, when I do finally relax, I only like to do so on my own. If I were to try to relax around other people, I would feel anxious, and cramped.
It's not the best metaphor, but think of it like driving a car. You have things to do, even if it's the most natural thing in the world for you, and there's no risk that you will crash, and there aren't even any other cars on the road, you still need to focus on the road. So, if you were asked to relax in that situation, if someone held your hand while you were driving down the road and told you to close your eyes, you would rightly freak. Heck, even if you knew you could roll in that gear for a while, and you're thinking now "that doesn't sound too bad" you couldn't do it indefinitely, and you definitely couldn't relax entirely. Eventually, you would need to wrench your hand away and grab the gearshift, or slam on the brakes, because the car is still in motion.
That's what relaxing feels like around other people, to me anyway. Even if I trust someone else implicitly, many of the people I hang out with are great mates, I would trust them with my wallet, my secrets, my unconscious body and even my heart-lung bypass machine in many cases. But I don't . . . think in a way that makes it so that I can de-stress, relax, process, think and just be myself without worry. Not around them. Not even around family. That's a kind of intimacy that I have reservations about. I'm not even talking about something that sexual or romantic, I am just talking about being able to unwind, but I can't do that around others.

So, when I am stressed, I want to be alone so that I can relax. But the longer I am alone the more stressed I am, because I need to spend time with other people because being lonely makes me feel more stressed. It's a vicious cycle.

That is the reason why I am not blogging as much as I would like to.

However, I am not completely without any work done. I have been working on some other projects. I have a novel that I have been actually writing, so that it can be actually published and read by all the wonderful boys and girls. And, I have another project on my YouTube channel.
Some of you may be a little confused now, since I don't actually have a "first project" on my YouTube channel, so reference to "another" might seem out of left field. But, this is just the nature of creating video content. See, around last March, I said that I wanted to do a major shake-up of my online presence, to change to a three-pronged approach. Two YouTube channels, and this blog, reducing the workload of Duke Forever as well as my blogging frequency, so that I could work on the channel and create videos.

I have not delivered on that, but it is not at all out of laziness, I promise you. You see, I did indeed do a lot of work attempting to create content for a YouTube channel. I started working on different programs, doing research into animation, looking into different forms of editing and special effects. I created several preliminary videos and screen tests as well as checking my own repertoire of acting and voicework.
However, I hit a major stumbling block . . . I am not an animator or actor. At least, not in any way a viably productive, fast or even competent one. I can act, poorly, but I didn't really want my face on camera that often. And also, I can create really good animations, but only short, simple, silent ones that take weeks and weeks to create.
So, a lot of my potential ideas required a butt-tonne of animation that I couldn't manage, and after learning that I quickly shifted gears and looked for simplified means of animation, but even the simplest animations (akin to the Zero Punctuation review animations, or even the Bible Reloaded slideshows) still take time and effort to do, moreso than I can achieve whilst also working on my other projects.
So, rather than leave people waiting for one of those every two or three weeks, I figured I could try to create some kind of show that I should create much more quickly, without as much effort, that I would create and upload more frequently, so that when people are waiting in the meantime they wouldn't be bored. You need to understand that YouTube subscribers are not as reliable as you faithful readers, and since YouTube is an advertising platform there is much more rigamarole in regards to creating, posting and sustainably receiving an audience for your content.
But, I never managed to come up with a simple, easy-to-create video series that I was proud of, so I abandoned many of those ideas, trying to find something I would be happy with, since the easiest thing to do would be a vlog, but I am not a vlogger, I am a blogger.

In the end, I decided that I can't just create content for its own sake, I prefer to educate, make people think and put effort into my work. That's not to say that I have abandoned the idea entirely, rather that my dream of perhaps "expanding my audience" with a YouTube channel has been side-lined, and instead I will just focus on using it as an extension of this blog.
I prefer to write. I can't create an "easy-to-create" series, because I don't think like that, and I definitely don't write like that. So, the current project on the go is a series that I am going to try to create in its entirety, then post when it's done.
I also still have the three-pronged approach I was previously planning, but rather than two YouTube channels (since I can't even create one effectively) and this blog, I will instead just have my YouTube Channel, my Tumblr and my Blog.

Anyway, this was fun and it made me feel a lot better, so I am probably going to try to do this more often. I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and until next time thanks for reading my words, just make sure that you take care of yourself as well and I'll see you in my next post.

Stumbling Block

Forgive me, I'm a little bit out of sorts at the moment. To begin with, I'm getting over a bout of gastroenteritis, and after Easter I got a burn in my mouth which gives me a persistent headache which flares up whenever I eat or drink, and is only ever relieved with painkillers. Also, I've recently begin volunteering at a café as part of my jobsearch efforts, but at first there was a huge administrative error with the Job Service Provider I was assigned to. On my first day of work, they labelled me as absent despite me working the full time because of the truancy of another person whose name is similar to mine. So, my service provider attempted to put me back, but they assigned me to the same address with a different job description; it was only through discussion with both my service provider and the centre that I was finally given placement where I truly wanted to be - working in that cute, little café. So you see, I'm not quite on-balance yet, I've yet to maintain lock-step with either my mind or my timetable. The Word of the Day is: 'RHYTHM'

Rhythm /'rithəm/ n. 1. Movement in a (regular) pattern of time, especially with beat, accent, etc. 2. a. A pattern of regular or irregular pulses caused in music or speech by the occurrence of strong and weak beats. b. A particular form of this: duple rhythm; triple rhythm. 3. Art The proper relation of parts to each other and to an artistic whole. 4. A pattern of regularity in hanging elements or conditions: The rhythm of the seasons.

See, I'm just trying to find my rhythm, I want to get into a cycle whereby I can sleep, wake, work, write, eat, socialize & repeat, all without losing momentum. But, I'm not there yet. Perhaps it's just a cruel irony that this is happening in March, a month whose name is a homonym for walking in a regular, measured and deliberate manner . . .
But, part of the reason that it's so hard for me to find that balance is because my work and writing schedule has taken a major shake-up. For those of you that have been paying close attention -especially if you're on a desktop, as the mobile view often hides formatting on the side- you will have noticed that I have altered the "Follow Me" section of this blog. If my settings are just right . . .

you'll see what I'm talking about right over here →

If not, maybe you're on a mobile device, or you've adjusted the size of your window or you have different browser settings. But the point is, I have a couple of fun links around this blog. There's links straight to Duke Forever, an archive, a translator and some links to the right in my "Follow Me" section lead to my Tumblr and Google+ pages. But recently, I also added one for YouTube.
If it's not clear already, I'm considering making some stuff for YouTube. I have a lot of ideas, and I've been searching around for ways to accomplish this with the least hassle and the greatest quality. But, as with my work schedule, I'm still a little unsteady on my feet. See, I still want to keep this blog up and running, so I've been doing some planning to keep all my plates spinning and make sure that nothing - least of all this blog - smashes to pieces on the ground.

See, my plan is to alter my online presence so as to have a three-headed approach to my content. The first will be my primary YouTube channel, KelniusTV, on that channel I plan on creating serialized fiction. I will give no further details than that, and I can't say that any of it is currently up and running, but I have some projects already completed.
The second will be my secondary channel, Critical Eye View, which I have set up for the purposes of critique, review and analysis on a wide array of topics, particularly stories, culture and religion. This one is currently undergoing the greatest amount of pre-production, as the format I am seeking to employ will be the easiest to create content for.
Finally, this very blog, Absurd Word Nerd. I don't plan on changing this blog very much, except that I may have to maintain a "piecemeal" approach to blogging, I don't think I'll return to my "1 post every 3 days" structure, but hopefully I'll be at more than one a month in the coming weeks. However one thing I see myself doing different is adding a feature to this blog of "behind the scenes". I already do that to a degree, but even in the pre-production side of things, I've seen and discovered things in the filming, production and development of these channels which I wouldn't mind talking about in greater detail. Oh, and I may even be more inclined to share a video or two on this blog; videos which are not freely available on my YouTube channels.

So, that's what I'm up to. Of course, I'm still a little dizzy from all this flip-flopping and changing schedule, and trying to get used to the new state of affairs, so (at time of writing, at least) none of this preparation I've been doing has resulted in any video content, so don't get ahead of yourself or ahead of me. But, I'm working on it.

Oh, and one other thing . . . Duke Forever. I've come to realize that this project of mine was overly ambitious. See, to me, Duke provided an opportunity to flourish my writing arts in a new genre, and to explore writing opportunity without pressure, whilst also forcing myself to try harder.
Yet, with all these new projects, Duke Forever could not survive . . . not in its original plans, anyway. However, that is not to declare the story over - oh no, I still plan on continuing Duke Forever! But, I've changed around my planning schedule, effectively cutting my work in half. I've shortened the length of each planned volume, and I've adjusted story-archs and plotlines, re-arranging chapters and folding them into future volumes to better allow for succinct writing.
Don't get me wrong, I am not short-changing my readers, a lot of the planning I had done for Duke Forever was preliminary and overly ambitious, and I am confident that my current outline for the story will not only be easier to write, but also easier to read.

In conclusion, things are shaking up around here, and I apologize if it seems like I am just over-promising and under-delivering. But, before I go, let me just say that I made myself a promise this year. I didn't like that there were such large gaps in my archive last year and while I knew that I would be posting few and far between, as I wrote about, I promised that I would write at least once every month. Now, while today is the last day of the month, I still managed to keep that promise to myself.
And I consider that a promise to you. Yes, it may be last minute; yes, I may push myself harder than I should and yes, maybe I could have planned it all better.

But, I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and I will still do what I have to do to get it done . . .

The Few, the Far and the In Between

In a couple of ways, I miss the very first few days of this blog. It was a wild, frontier-time when I was writing for writing's sake; when I was a mere amateur, not ever published, so my only writing pressures were my own; when I suffered from just one mental illness; when I somehow managed to write once every three days & - although I do not regret having work to look forward to - when I had less "projects" going on, so that I could more readily focus on this blog and my readership.

I honestly don't know how I managed three blog posts a day. I think I cared a little less, or maybe nowadays I care a little too much. One of the reasons I'm writing this is because, despite not feeling confident enough to write an entire blog post about some of the ideas I have, I do want to keep writing this. I love having a blog, my little foot in the door between me and the great world at large. I have an awful lot of pride in this blog, such that even though I don't like change, several times I found myself changing this blog to better suit the style that I wished it to evoke. And I am in fact honoured that people come here to read it, and occasionally leave comments.

This is entirely my own, and I do hope - one day - to become a published author, and on that day I still hope to have this blog, and update it. Even if someone insists that I have a "proper website", I still want to have this one handy. It is entirely mine, entirely self-motivated and entirely for fun. I like the atmosphere it has, and wouldn't trade that for anything.

So, please, do not take it the wrong way when I say that I am too busy to update. But, the fact of the matter is that I consider this blog part of my "writing work", and lately I have been working on some other writing projects.
There is one collaborative writing project that I was accepted into almost a month ago, called ODIN. I've been working on a serialized story for the project in the time I would usually spend working on personal writing projects and/or blogging. It's a lot of fun, lots of folks are taking part and I'm enjoying the challenge, but it means this blog has fallen to the wayside. I'm working to write more blog posts, but you definitely can't expect them as frequently as I once wrote them.

Although, on that note, ODIN is looking for more writers. There's a bit of a screening process, but if you are a writer and are keen to take on a significant writing challenge (although enjoyable and rather fast and loose, this will be relatively labour intensive), and if you like science fiction and adventure let me know that you're interested, and provide me with a link to an example of some of your writing. If I'm impressed, I will bring you to the attention of the Head Writer.

There are some other ideas I've been toying with lately as well. As you can tell, I did my Halloween Countdown recently (it was actually the last thing I did on this blog, oh my how time flies), but that also means it was my birthday.
The present I got for my birthday (alongside some lovely chocolates) was, in fact, a mobile phone. For the last 8 years, I have had one phone, it was a great phone. In fact it still is a great phone, a Nokia X1-01 and I would still be using it today, except . . . Vodafone happened. My provider decided that, because I hadn't made a call in 6 months (I had no disposable income and was looking for work, so I was receiving calls but could not afford to make them from my mobile phone), they put my number in something called "quarantine", as the phone number would eventually transfer from my SIM to be recycled into the network.
Which is a fancy way of saying: "Well, you're not giving us money, so fuck you we're taking your phone number away."
And since I needed a new SIM card, and they don't sell 2G cards anymore, I was forced to upgrade my phone.

So, I got a new phone. This one another Nokia, since I love that brand, and since I was upgrading I figured I'd try for a smartphone so I got a Nokia Lumia 532. In my eternal quest to stay just behind the cutting edge of technology, I bought a phone that they don't make anymore, the "Lumia" series goes all the way up to the 900s now which meant my phone was very cheap despite coming with a pre-packed SIM card. Also, because Vodafone was such a dick, I switched to Telstra.
Anyway, my point is, I have a phone, a Microsoft Phone (because I do not like iPhones) which means it came prepackaged with Microsoft Word.

And all of that was a long way of me saying that I've been looking into cell phone novels lately. Or, since I am not an American , I would prefer to call them phone novels. They are meant to be written on a phone, so I thought it would be interesting to see if I could actually accomplish that.
Don't get all excited, I haven't planned anything, I just think it's a cool idea, with a fascinating medium and style, so I might see if I can actually do something like that. In short, if you're interested, it's a style of writing whereby each chapter is the size of a text message. It forces the writer to resort to greater poetry and use of whitespace to express the story, and a lot of the plot is concealed (due to writing limitations) which adds to the theme and style of the genre.

And thirdly, there are several blog post ideas that I am interested in writing, but I keep forgetting or getting side-tracked. So, I figured, rather than keep getting all flustered, I'll do what I often do to organize my brain . . . lists. I can't give you a deadline, since with Christmas coming up, family responsibilities, job-hunting & ODIN work to do, I will be quite busy; but, I can give you a checklist. So, here are seven blog posts that I am going to attempt to write for this blog in the near future:

1. Healing Diary: A Tribute to Dr Mona
• (Where I talk about my psychologist, because she was nice)
2. WotD: "Speech"
• (Where I talk about Freedom of Speech)
3. Blogfiction: "Creature Fluff"
• (I promised my girlfriend I would write some light, cute fiction for her)
4. WotD: "Selfie"
• (I want to talk about selfie culture, photography and self-portraiture)
5. WotD: "Doxxing"
• (Apparently, this happens a lot. I want to look at the word and the phenomenon)
6. Duke Forever - Chapter 12: Party Crashers
• (I want to continue this story, I'm getting to a really good bit)
7. WotD: "Special"
• (I want to discuss what does and does not make us special)

So, you see, I haven't been out of ideas . . . just busy. I will, in time, write about all of these things. Of course, I may occasionally write a few more posts like this in between. And I may do a special Christmas and/or New Years post around these as well. It's going to be pretty fast and loose. But, I will get around to them all, in time. All I ask is that you be patient.

I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and until next time, feel free to leave comments, keep in touch, I'll be around . . . I just have a few stories to write first.

Update Update

Good morning, campers. Today, I'm writing in a sort of bittersweet mood. Because, I have good news and bad news. You see, I've been looking for a job for a while now, so the Good News is that I've found a pretty good opportunity. I'm going to be learning to get my R.S.A. (Responsible Service of Alcohol certificate), R.S.G. (Responsible Service of Gaming certificate) & baristi training, in a short course which (fingers-crossed) will either help me get a job outright, or more easily apply for jobs, as a bartender. Sounds simple enough, to me, and it's government-funded, so I won't be spending money I don't have.
Of course, we must now slowly trudge towards the Bad News. As I said, I've been job-hunting, and in so doing I've known for a while that the time I take to write these blogs - that is, my free time - will be quite aggressively consumed by the time it takes to do my job. And while I don't yet have a job, this blog will have to be scaled back quite considerably during my training (and when I do get my job), so you won't be seeing anywhere near as many updates as I often provide. The Word of the Day is: 'UPDATE'

Update /up'dayt/ v.t. 1. To bring (a book, figures, or the like) up to date, as by adding new information or making corrections: To update a science textbook. 2. Computers To incorporate new or more accurate information in (a database, program, procedure, etc.). 3. To bring (a person, organization, etc.) up to date on a particular subject: The magazine article will update you on the international situation. ♦n. 4. An act or instance of updating: To make an update in a financial ledger. 5. Information or data used in updating. 6. An updated version, model, or the like.

So, today's post is about bringing you up to date on my updates. Or an "update update", if you will.

Now, the most important part to remember is that I have no plans on ending this blog. To be perfectly honest, I want to keep this blog going even after I get my novels published, and that's a long time coming. I want to keep this connection between the internet at large, and me. So I will keep on writing blog posts, and this blog will continue. But, with not so many posts as before.
Some of you may have already noticed that my blog posts have been slowing down, rest assured this was not planned, I've just been dealing with stress at home and abroad and as a result haven't had much time to think about Words of the Day and I haven't had much time to write. But, in a way, it's a bit of a blessing as it means that I've been unwittingly preparing you for this day.

So far, the plan is that I'll try to write regular blog posts on the weekend, and I'll try to write Duke Forever chapters always. That is, I'll constantly be working on the next chapter, I'll write them in the background and during my free time and post them when they're completed. This isn't much different to my current method, I already think about it whenever I go for a walk, it's just that this will be slower, as I've already mentioned.
Now, although I plan on writing weekends, I don't know that I'll always be able to finish a post on time. I might be able to publish a post for you once or twice a fortnight. But this all does depend on balance and how well I can work at both being here and at work/training, and I might even post less frequently than that depending on my luck.

But I have high hopes. After all, if I can manage some kind of schedule, then I can work "writing" into the schedule, and I might even be able to write with greater reliability than before, even though I'd write at a lower frequency. That's my hopes anyway, no promises.

The only real downside is that I won't be able to do so many of my fun "blogging events". Like, the gameblog (which I've been postponing forever anyway); Parody Week 2 & - most disappointing, the Halloween Countdown.
I wanted to do the countdown every year, so despite my reduced freedom, I'm trying my damnedest to cobble something together for the Halloween Countdown here at the last minute, but I can't promise anything except that I'm doing everything I can to make this happen.
In fact, if anyone wants to offer any help in regards to the Countdown [or just the blog in general], such as a guest post or a horror story, it would be greatly appreciated. If you want to give me a hand, leave me a comment or e-mail me.

Anyway, that's the gist of it. I'm sorry that I won't post as often, but I will post whenever I can. Just drop by on weekends, and I should, hopefully, have something up. I'm sorry that this blog post is a little bit short, but that's all there is to say at the moment. I promise you, I will return when I have more to say.

Until then, I'm the Absurd Word Nerd keeping you up to date.

So Real . . .

Okay, here's how it is. I'm sorry that I'm slowing down with posts, but things are a bit hectic this week. Not only did my girlfriend finish her school holidays meaning she's been more busy, but my latest Duke Forever chapter has hit a major snag and I've got an interview in the morning for a potential job.
So everything's a bit anxious, exciting and frustrating, but most of all, it's busy. So, I didn't have much time to write a blog post this week. In fact, I don't really have time to write a full post, and my backlog has become dusty and fallen into disuse. So . . . I went looking through my documents to find something that was worth sharing, while also being something written by my own hand.
In that search, I found some of my old dream diary, and I thought I could share some of that with you this evening.

See, I don't dream very often, but when I do I like to write down what the dream was about. It's good writing practice, because dreams are so weird. After all, if you're capable of accurately describing the unusual circumstances within a dream then, then surely, you can accurately describe a dialogue between two characters.
So, this blog post will just be some of my more interesting dreams which I've written in my online dream diary. The Word of the Day is: 'SURREAL'

Surreal /sə'reeəl/ adj. 1. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of surrealism, an artistic and literary style; surrealistic. 2. Having the disorienting, hallucinatory quality of a dream; unreal; fantastic: Surreal complexities of the bureaucracy. ♦adj. 3. The surreal, the atmosphere or qualities evoked by surrealism.

To save time, I'm copy-pasting the documents, wholesale. I don't remember when I dreamt these. In fact, I wrote a lot of them a long time after I dreamt them, so I don't remember all of the details. As a result, these are in no particular order.

From the document "Bubblegum Wash.docx":

In this dream I was at my school and all the floors were made of shiny marble. This was because we were cleaning all the floors with scrubbing brushes, soap suds and water. There were heaps of other students around (they didn’t seem to represent people at all, I just knew they were students). We were all in pairs, called cleaning buddies. And in the dream me and my buddy were cheating somehow because we were using bubblegum (I don’t know how that helps, but this was a dream, so deal with it). Somehow, it got rid of the really hard  bits. However, when the other guys realized that we were cheating ,my cleaning buddy got real scared. Then we split up and we were running for our lives. Near the end of the dream, I was being chased up some stairs by a pair of cleaning buddies, and I saw another student near the top, so then I suddenly could run really fast (I think it had something to do with the bubblegum) and everyone else was in slow motion. And just as I ran past the student at the top of the stairs, I woke up.

From the document "Terrorist Tryst.docx":

the first part is a little bit vague, and I can’t remember it, but the first thing I saw was an old, brown car riding in the far away street outside my building’s window, In the car I could see (or at least, somehow earlier in my dream I knew) that my brother, aunt and cousins were in the car. It was driving fast. Then, somehow it cut to me, standing at my window, watching the car pass behind a short building. As it drove off, I think the television was on or radio, and it said something about terrorists. Then, as quick as a blink, at the spot where the car was there was an enourmous explosion. Light-brown dust flung in every direction and billowed against my building. As the concussive force of the explosion hit the building, I could hear a loud noise that I can’t remember (except for knowing that it was loud) and for some reason my vision flipped to the right, as though I was standing on the wall. As the dust settled (and I was standing up normal again) I ran into my parent’s balcony. Mum and Dad were standing in the balcony, calming watching the place where the explosion occurred. And I remember one of them saying something like “Well, that’s the end of him.”
and then I woke up.

From the document "Doggone Whistle.docx":

I was lying on the couch in the living room, when I fell asleep and didn't realize I did. So then I got up . . . in the dream of course. Can't get up when you're asleep. So then I got up and looked out the window. And . . . now see I fell asleep in the day time, so it was weird in the dream looking outside, because it was daytime outside, so I thought i was awake. And the . . . well, the outside the window was different from what it was originally, but I wasn't paying attention. So, there was this, well there were horses and policemen, and they were sitting on the horses. But that's not important.
Hey, it was a dream, it's not all important. Well actually it is. You know the meaning of life is revealed to us through dreams? It's true, but we all forget it by morning, so it's pretty frustrating . . . or worse, it's in dream logic, so no one can understand it: Like bubblegum that makes you run faster. Seriously I had a dream where bubblegum. But that's not important. And neither were the horses, because there was this dog. And this err, it was a doberman or some enourmous thing, and err . . . well it was huge and it's master, some hippy-like 20-year-old, couldn't hold onto . . .well, he could hold onto it, but he couldn't control it. And the dog was running away from him. Well, trying to run away, of course, the guy was hanging onto the leash. But see, the dog was running wild, dragging this dude all around the place it was pretty wild. The policemen weren't doing anything, useless. I mean I said they were unimportant, and they are, but really I thought I was awake, and I was disappointed that they couldn't help this man getting dragged around all "AAAAARGH! . . . help and AAAGH!!"
very poor policing . . .
Okay now, I have this whistle see. This super-epic dog whistle that I do. And it doesn't work, but see, when I was a kid I heard about dog whistles, and how dogs can hear it even though we can't, because it's like hypersonic, and so they react to it, but you can't hear it. NOw when I was younger, I realized that I could whistle through my teeth really high pitched, and the idiot I was, I believed that dogs could hear it and that nobody else could. Right. I thought that I was the master of dogs with my high pitched whistle.
Now, of course, this doesn't work. But in my dream, I forgot that. So, I whistled at this dog, this huge dog dragging the guy around. And, I swear this is true . . . well, you know, for the dream anyway.
Because I live in a building. Up really high, on the fourth floor . . . well it's not high, but it's high for a dog see.
Because I whistled this dog, and he came to me . . . up on the fourth floor. He scaled the building, dragging the guy after him. Now I had to like . . . jump back from the window see, because he was HUGE! And he came right through the window, dragging the guy after him. Now, I was just . . . bewildered. Because I thought this was real, so I well, I closed the window, because I didn't want the dog to escape, and then preceded, in bewilderment, to talk to this guy. Now, I checked that he was okay, and the enourmous dog was just sitting in the corner, panting, and I was asking the guy, yeah, 'You alright?" hes' like, "yeah, sure mate." Though he was all scratched to shit up his arms, and his hand was twisted, cos, he was holding the leash with it. And I went in the next room, where my family was, and made sure everyone was okay, asked if they were worried about mess and stuff, because the guy was bleeding and the dog's paws were dirty with rubble and whatever destruction it had raged. And I was just so . . . WOW, cos I was amazed that a dog had the strength to pull itself and a man up the wall. And then I woke up . . .
That was shitfull. I mean, I spent all that time bewildered and all that, surprised and amazed, thinking of the scientific articles I could write, get so much money, reporting this, go on the news, get my novel off the ground . . . And it was all a dream. My life, people. This is my life. My life is an empty dream that I woke up from.

From the document "Midnight Phonebox.docx":

This was a very strange dream. I was at home, alone in the dark, and I wanted to know where everyone else had gotten to. So, I called a taxi on the phone.
But I don’t know what it was, I guess I skipped a scene or something because the next thing I knew I was suddenly in the middle of nowhere. It was basically a T-Intersection. I was standing atop the peak of the ‘T’, and on the left side of the road, across from me, was a streetlight on the corner, and slightly behind it was a phone box. I crossed the road over toward the telephone box, but I didn’t have any money, so I stood around in the dark for a while.
There must have been another scene skip, because the next thing I knew I had some money and I went to the phone. I couldn’t see the numbers on the phone, so I somehow pulled the streetlight down and shone the light into the phonebox. There was yet another scene skip and I was hanging up the phone. I stood around in the dark a bit more, then decided to use the phone again. But when I stepped up to the phone I remembered that I had no money left, so I tried pressing the “refund money” button to get some money.
And I was lucky enough to have it spit out a twenty cent coin. I went to put it in the phone, but stopped when I decided to press the “refund money” button again.
So I press it, and it pops out another coin. I press it again and it pops out more, and I press it again, press it again and again and again and again until (even though I pressed it like 50 times) I had a handful of about 3-5 coins.
But as I held the coins, I realized I had no pockets to put them into. I can’t remember what happened next, but I woke up later.

- - -

Thank you for reading. That's what my brain does while I'm asleep. I will let you know how my job interview thing goes and I want to get back to updating more regularly, without having to resort to combing through my old documents for material.
Until next time, I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and I need to get to bed early for tomorrow. So, I hope I have sweet dreams, and I hope you do too.

Ladies and Gentlemen

I didn't really want to write this blog post. It's a mixture of things, but basically, for this Duke Forever thing, I've been writing a new chapter every eight posts. So it's:
Duke Chapter, seven blog posts, Duke Chapter, seven blog posts, recurring . . .
Part of that was because a major part of the story is the 88 story arch, and eight was a good enough arbitrary number by which to write the next instalment, and it was fun. However, my friend Frank told me that he did the maths, and if I continue like that, the story would take over twenty years to write. Not to mention, my schedule is probably going to get flipped on its head when I finally find a job, which would slow it down even more. So, I figured that I'd speed things up after the eighth post, and write Duke Chapters more frequently.
And since I did the "once every eight" posts thing for the first eight chapters, that's eight-eight, I figure that's enough to get the point across with the 88 reference, now I want to write more frequently. But I don't want Duke Forever to be the entire blog, this is the Absurd Word Nerd blog, not the Duke Forever blog, after all I want it to be a dominant fixture, but not the only fixture, so I wrote a bunch of other blog posts as well, until I got up to six, and I figured I'd start writing this latest Duke Forever post now, after only six, make this one the seventh post and throw a spanner in the whole "every eight posts" pattern, but that's not working out.

As usual, this chapter is taking a while to write, but I've also got writer's block because I'm so stressed with this job-hunting nonsense, and so I've lost a bit of my writing mojo. I'm still battling through, but it's taking too long, so I figured I'd write a blog post now, just to keep everyone up to date and so that people don't think I've disappeared, I'm still here and I'm still writing.
But . . . I don't want the next post to be Duke Forever. I don't want there to be nine eighth posts that are Duke Forever, that doesn't work! I spoke about this in my numerology post, I have arbitrary, numerological curiosities and although they seem silly, constructing patterns is how I create stories - by putting together these disparate, perhaps illogical, ideas. So I'll write this post today and then another one later on in the week before writing my next Duke Forever chapter.

Okay . . . well, that's the plan. So, today's post is basically a bit of housekeeping for the blog, letting you know not only that Duke will be more frequent (and details of that frequency), but that my schedule should be changing in the near future. At that time I might have to post as little as once a week or once a fortnight, and in those instances I hope to write Duke every second or third post. So it would be just as frequent if not more frequent than what I do now.

Right . . .

Well, that's not much of a blog post, is it? I'm just doing housekeeping, this isn't educational or interesting like so many of my other posts. So, for lasting this far, I'll add some fun, shall I?

The following was copy/pasted from a conversation I recently had with someone very dear to me. On her request, spelling errors have been excised, and I've formatted it for easy reading, but otherwise this is exactly what we said to one another:

----------------------------------------------------------------
ME: Dear readers, for something a little different, I would like to introduce you to my Beloved.
Say hi.
GF: Hi, readers
I hope you're treating the Major here well
ME: Haha, aww.
They know my real name.
GF: Even if they do, they ought to know the other bit
that your nickname is for your initials
ME: Oh yeah . . .
GF: Which is really, really cool
ME: Well, there's a whole story to it.
In 2008, when I was in Grade 12, we could get these jerseys - like jacket/jumper things - for the graduating class. And every year before that, you could get a fun nickname on the back.
Like, some people had "Kung Fu King" or "Jackie" or what-have-you. But the school stopped it for our year.
I'm guessing because too many people wanted to put rude words on there or something.
GF: Can't be worse than the Horny hornets
that's from the YA novel Speak
ME: Haha
GF: which has a running gag of the school mascot always changing
ME: I think I've read that.
Anyway, long story short, I wanted to have something cool, but they said "No, no nicknames. Only your first name, last name or initials".
So I cheated the system.
Because I have two middle names.
So my shirt spelled M A J A, which people read as Major.
GF: and makes you sound like a cool rogue major
ME: But anyway, I don't want this to be all about me.
I like the idea of showing off my gorgeous girlfriend to my readers, even if only via text.
GF: makes me think of creating a self-portrait with text only
ME: Like an ASCII thing?
GF: perhaps; I don't know what ASCII is
but it's interesting that Matt and I bonded over our love of words
and precision of language
we actually met because he commented on how I used a particular term incorrectly, and he wanted to read some of my fiction
ME: Yeah, I was just looking for other writers. And when you suggested that we chat, I couldn't resist.
GF: But anyway, it's a good lesson to learn: if you want to date someone online, don't spend money on eHarmony or match.com
Just find a blogger who knows how to use sophisticated English literature terms
ME: I think we worked well together because a) we are both writers, so we're both proficient at expressing our emotions in words.
& b) We met as writers, so we knew right from the beginning that we had something in common.
GF: The important other thing is that we liked each other's writing
That can be a make or break factor in the art of courtship between writers
ME: Haha
I never thought of that.
GF: In our case, words mean as much as actions
ME: I'm sure I'd stick with you even if you wrote like Stephen King :P
GF: Lol, don't even get Matt started on his Stephen King diatribes
no matter how many independent bookstores Stephen visited in his prime of life, or how many charities he created, he can do no good in Matt's eyes
ME: (Oh, this is what I meant by ASCII thing, by the way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII_art)
GF: It's a good learning lesson; to get on Matt's good side, never call other writers "hacks" even if they deserve it
ME: Well, it just seems uncivil.
Especially when it was a case of the pot calling the kettle black . . .
GF: I agree it's uncivil
but I'm biased because the author that King insulted happens to be friends with an author that I like
and said author was blogging about how some of the insults breached etiquette
I've probably insulted a few authors in my fair share, but these days I just say I disagree with them
Authors are not their books, and vice-versa
ME: Well, it's not that he insulted her work . . . I get that, people do that all the time. The issue is that he said she was a bad writer, when she clearly isn't.
GF: He insulted her
but he insulted her based on her work
ME: I mean, I think she's a bad storyteller, but I've come to that position after careful thought and debate.
But he looks at a popular author that he disagrees with and think that means she's a bad writer.
That would be like if I disagreed with Hilary Clinton's political policies, then declared that she was a bad mother.
Sorry, I'm rambling . . . you got me started on it.
GF: lol
keep rambling away
ME: Nah, I've written enough about Stephen King for one day.
GF: Okay
ME: Alright, well, I think that's enough for one day. Thank you for joining me, beautiful.
GF: You're welcome
ME: We should try this again some time. I love you.
GF: I love you too, and we should
----------------------------------------------------------------

And that's enough blogging for one day. I must admit that I really wanted to do that chat thing just so I would only have to do half the writing, since I was tired (hence no word of the day, today). But I've been wanting to do a chat-log blog post for a while now, this was just a good excuse.

I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and until next time, I'm still here! I'm sorry that it's taking so long, I've got some writer's block and my Beloved is helping me through it. But I'll give you at least one more non-Duke post before adding the next chapter.

Major Blockage

Readers, writers & followers alike, I'm back. Thank you for waiting a whole month for my latest post, chapter five of Duke Forever. I told everyone that I would be taking a break from writing then I'd come back after a Duke Forever Christmas Special and continue where I left off. However, the astute amongst you have probably realized by now that it's February, and I said that I wanted to write this before Christmas then return in the next month. So where have I been for the last Thirty Days? Well, I'm afraid that I've been waylaid by unforeseen circumstances. The Word of the Day is: 'BLOCK'.

Block /blok/ n. 1. A solid mass of wood, stone, metal, etc. 2. A child's building block. 3. a mould on which something is shaped, e.g.: a hat block. 4. Qld One of the wooden supports for a house built above ground. 5. A piece of wood used for engraving. 6. Printing A letterpress printing plate mounted on a base. 7. A (wooden) bench or board for chopping, beheading, etc. 8. Mechanics a. A device of one or more grooved pulleys mounted in the casing or shell to which a hook or the like is attached, used for transmitting power, changing the direction of motion, etc. b. A casing or shell holding a pulley. 9. Pathology An obstruction, as of a nerve. 10. Sport the stopping of an opponent's actions or course. 11. A quantity, portion, or section taken as unit: block of tickets. 12. Australian A section of land, often in a suburb, for building a house on, etc.: A block of land, a building block. 13. A group of city or town buildings enclosed by intersecting streets. 14. One large building, divided into offices, apartments, etc.: An office block, a block of flats. 15. Also, starting block. Athletics One of a pair of supports for feet, used by a sprinter to give more power from a crouching start. 16. writer's block. A temporary condition in which a writer finds it impossible to proceed with the writing of a novel, play, or other work.

17. A large number of bonds or shares of stock sold together as a single unit. 18. Computers. a. A group of data stored as a unit on an external storage medium and handled as a unit by the computer for input or output: This file has 20 records per block. b. A section of storage locations in a computer allocated to a particular set of instructions or data. c. A group of consecutive machine words organized as a unit and guiding a particular computer operation, especially with reference to input and output. d. (on a flow chart) A symbol representing an operation, device, or instruction in a computer program. 19. Railroads. Any of the short lengths into which a track is divided for signaling purposes. 20. Philately A group of four or more unseparated stamps, not in a strip. 21. Slang A person's head. 22. Glassmaking A wooden or metal cup for blocking a gather.23. An obstruction or stoppage in mental processes or speech, especially when related to stress, emotional conflict, etc. 24. Geology a. Any large, angular mass of solid rock. b. Fault block. 25. (in Canada) A wild or remote area of land that has not yet been surveyed: the peace River block. 26. Automotive Cylinder block. 27. Falconry A low perch to which a falcon is tethered outdoors. 28. lose (or do) one's block, Colloquial To become very angry. ♦v.t. 29. To fit, shape or prepare with blocks; mount on blocks. 30. To cut into blocks. 31. block out (or in) To draw or outline roughly, without details; sketch. 32. To obstruct (a space, movement, etc.); stop or delay (a person, etc.) by placing obstacles in the way. 33. To hide from view. 34. Pathology To stop movement along (a nerve, etc.); occlude. 35. To join (the ends of boards or the like) by fastening to a block of wood. 36. Theater a. Also, block out. to plan or work out the movement of performers in a play, pageant, etc.: Tomorrow we'll block act one. b. To draw a floor plan on (a stage) in order to indicate placement of scenery, stage property, etc. ♦v.i. 37. To act so as to stop an opponent (as in football, boxing, etc.)

{Show/Hide - more meanings}

On Wednesday, January 8th, 2014 -  just one week into the new year - my grandmother had a heart attack. An occlusion of the major ventricle into the heart. See, 'occlusion' is a fancy word for blockage; my grandmother's heart was essentially choking on cholesterol, from 70+ years of eating cakes and not enough vegetables.
Now, please don't worry, my grandmother is alive. Of that I am truly thankful, I love my Nanna and I've even talked about her on this blog before; she's awesome and old school. But she's very old, so even after the block was removed and a stint was put in place to keep the weakened vessel working, the doctors had a lot of trouble getting her on the right track to healing. She spent a stressful two weeks in hospital, and throughout that time all of my aunts and uncles flew in to see her and a few stayed at my house.
Then, when she finally came out of hospital, Nanna came to stay with us and we took care of her for a week. She's doing well, but I was helping to cook "heart smart" meals, and I'd keep her company on occasion or make sure she was exercising.
That is, until a week ago, when my Aunt Meshell offered to care for her for a while, so although I'm still concerned, I feel as though a weight's been lifted off my shoulders.

So let me first say to all you people, try to stay healthy. My grandmother's diet was not atrocious - and she's not fat - but it just built up over time. When my mother called the ambulance they arrived in four minutes, but the doctor said that it was a close call and they saved her "just in time". And Nanna often says of the experience: It felt like I was dying.
I'd never wish that on anyone, so I'm just saying, try to be healthy.

But on another note, I want to talk to the writers. Because, you see, although my Nanna was in hospital I was still trying to write for this blog. It's not that I was ignoring family obligations or anything so harsh. When I got a spare hour or two to myself, often at the end of the day, I would sit down and try to write because writing tends to take my mind off of things, and I thought it would help to relieve some of the stress of this situation. However, every time I sat down to write, I found myself coming up empty. Drawing a blank. My mind was just "nope, not happening". It was a textbook case of Writer's Block.
For me, it was so frustrating. I just wanted to take my mind off of the stress of the day, but my mind was refusing. Thankfully, I could chat to my Beloved and we'd talk it out, so I wasn't broiling in anxiety and worry, but I still felt gutted that even my free time was spent feeling lost. All I wanted to do was to write a story, was that so much to ask?

Well, as it turns out, it was. See, I've done some research into Writer's Block recently, and I've come to learn something very important. See, although we come to see Writer's Block as some grand mysterious force, almost like a force of nature that we can never comprehend, I've learned recently that Writer's Block has a face. See, while we call it "writer's block", that's merely a nickname. It's real name is Fear.
Sometimes writer's block is when a writer runs out of ideas. But that's not real writer's block, that's just being silly. Why would you try to write something if you don't have any idea what to write?
However, when we sit before that quill & paper; that notebook & pen; that keyboard & monitor - and we have a story to tell, but it refuses to be written, it's most often due to fear, anxiety, worry or stress. Now, in general, this is caused by our fears about our own ability, or the calibre of the story:
  "Am I even capable of writing a romance story?"
  "I've only ever written fanfiction, can I even write something original?"
  "What if everyone hates it?"
  "How can I write a novel if I've only ever written short stories before?"
  "Is this a good idea, or am I just deluding myself?"
So while we sit there, with the story in mind. Even if we know what has to happen next, we draw a blank. Our mind doesn't take that next step and put it into words. Because we are scared of doing it wrong. I've mentioned some of this before in Perfect Page Paradox, but in that post, my solution was to a specific problem and I offered a few simple tricks to get over the problem.
However, Writer's Block is a slightly different beast. Sure, you can trick yourself into writing with tricks, but even though I write almost every day, I found myself afflicted by the condition during a moment of family-related stress. So I figure it should be tackled with a different approach.

You need to find what it is that is truly holding you back. What is the basis of your fear. For me, it was not just general anxiety caused by my Nanna, but it was that feeling of insecurity. I lost faith in myself, since someone so close to me had been hurt and I could do nothing about it. That reflected on my writing ability, since I no longer felt secure in my ability to take control of my own words. I also felt like I was writing a bad story, it seemed insignificant in the face of my real-world issues.
I overcame my fear by talking to my girlfriend. She helped me to regain my confidence and encouraged me to continue. This wasn't an immediate cure, I was still overcome by anxiety, but with her helped I went from writing nothing every day, to writing a sentence every day. Then three sentences. Then a paragraph & finally I managed to finish the story at the end of the month.

So those are the two things you need to keep in mind if you're fighting your own writer's block:
1. Find the Heart of the Matter: Look into your own situation, look at your abilities and find out what's really holding you back. More often than not for amateurs, it's insecurity due to inexperience. For older writers, it might be mental exhaustion or external stresses. Don't deal with surface details, go right to the centre of your fear and fight it head on.
2. Don't Rush, Wait it Out: There isn't a magic pill you can take to cure writer's block; the treatment isn't medication, it's meditation and it takes time. I found that I had to talk it out, calm down and regain my self-confidence; your treatment might be sleeping earlier, eating healthier or using your free time to relax. If your stress is caused by external forces - a break-up, depression, trouble at home or sickness - often the only solution is to wait for it to be dealt with before moving on.
If you rush into writing before you're ready, you will just tire yourself out and it will take longer to get back into writing. So just take the time your time, and remember: You will get over it, eventually.

If you've ever suffered - or are suffering - from writer's block, let someone know. Writing is so often solitary, so we feel like we have to deal with these problems on our own; But you don't. If I had tried to figure this out on my own, you'd be waiting another month for Chapter Five.
Granted, there are different solutions for different people, and I can't guarantee this will help you, so don't go talking to people unless you think it will help. But if you do think it's the right decision, I encourage you to talk to someone, especially a fellow writer if you know one, but you can also reach out to friends or family. Or, if you really want, you could talk to me, I do have a comments section, if you want to get in touch . . .
I guarantee that there is a way for you to get over whatever is holding you back, be patient and you will find it.

Until next time, I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and I'm back!

Counting on You

I like words. They're easy to me, they come naturally and I can easily remember words, since they're related to concepts and emotions which makes them more memorable and therefore accessible in the human brain. In language there's freedom of expression and movement, you can say whatever you want and express yourself in a myriad of ways, with the only stipulation that you need to be understood.
However, I don't like numbers. There's no poetry in a number, there's no feeling, it feels so clinical and hygienic and I find it impossible to remember numbers because there's nothing but a single figure, no lee-way. In mathematics there is a single answer (or very few) and if you don't know it you're wrong, the only stipulation in maths being that you must remember the rules of the equation.

There's nothing wrong with mathematics and numbers, and if you use or appreciate them yourself then you're welcome to, but I don't like them. Part of this has to do with the association of always failing Maths in school, but moreso it's because I can never remember numbers. I can't tell you exactly why, but I do think it's the emotion or feeling involved since I can remember something qualitatively, rather than quantitatively.

However, as much as I dislike numbers, I can't say that I never use them. It's just that, when I do, I have to put a bit of that emotion, that poetry and that life back into the numbers I use. The Word of the Day is: 'NUMEROLOGY'.

Numerology /nyūmə'roləjee/ n. 1. The study of numbers (especially one's birth year, etc.) supposedly to determine their influence on one's life and future. 2. The purported mystical relationship between numbers and the character or action of physical objects and living things.

Right off the bat, numerology is bullshit. Along with Atronomy, Religion & Homeopathy, it's one of those realms of study that exist because we're too scared to accept that the world is difficult to understand. So, rather than accept that, we pretend there exists some cheat-sheet by which we should live our lives to get the most out of it.
But I felt it was appropriate for today's word because today I want to talk about adding meaning to numbers where no such meaning exists. Because while I hate Mathematics, it would be foolish to completely abandon numbers in my life, so I find new ways to look at numbers so as to better my relationship with them.

Let's start with my favourite number: 27. Why is it my favourite?
Mostly because it seems the most like me.  Let me make some sense of that, because it's kind of weird . . .
Firstly, twenty-seven is represented by two numbers, two and seven.
I like two because it's unique. It's the only number with a straight line and a curved line. The other numbers 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 & 9 are made up of all curved or all straight lines, so 2 has more variety, visually speaking. [The number five (5) is also made up of a curved and two straight lines, but it feels too official for me. Just look at its multiples: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, etcetara. Too orderly for me.] Also, 2 is the only Prime Number that is also Even, a perfectly unique number.
As for 7, it's the only single-digit number that has two syllables, but to me it also looks so stern; short, sharp straight lines and an acute angle. It looks like a number that doesn't take any nonsense. Depending on how you draw it, it too can have one straight line and one curved, and it's also the only number (that I know of) which can be written in two ways: 7 or  7

Now, you may be wondering, why 27, but not 72?
Firstly, because 72 is too big. Big numbers seem too self-important to me. They've got so many digits, I prefer the smaller numbers, the much more intimate, diminutive numbers.
Also, as a bit of beautiful symmetry, 27 is equal to "three multiplied by three, multiplied by three". Three threes, which can also be written: 3³
It's a thing of beauty . . .

Now, I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that you're sittign there right now with a confused look on your face thinking "What the hell is he talking about?"
Simply put, this is just a form of natural ideasthesia. In my head, I'm mixing up emotion with sight, sound with concept and that kind of thing.
But the way I think of it, it's not so much confusion as an attempt to find meaning in numbers. They are mere quantities, a numerical value, so I associate with those values other qualities. I don't know why I do this, I guess it's because I don't understand numbers, so I use my own methods to understand them in a different way.

It's not the most practical use of numbers, but I find that these "additional values" of certain numbers helps me in my writing.
In fiction, I've used numbers in all manner of ways, particularly within Duke Forever. I'd point them all out to you, but I fear that would defeat the point. All that I will tell you is that the first story was also the 72nd post of this blog and I've been writing them every eight posts since then.

I also like to use numbers and dates for my regular "Word of the Day" blog posts. Mother's Day, Christmas & the Mayan Apocalypse . . . I've used them all to inspire or structure posts in the past. For the entire month of April, inspired by April Fool's Day, I dedicated the month to Parody.
So, I like a bit of numerological play. Which is why, recently, I've been getting concerned with my number of posts. If you've got your calculators at the ready, you may have noticed that I am slowly approaching my 100th Blog Post.
The reason I became concerned is partially because I realized that my 100th Post will coincide with October . . . and I've got something special planned for October as well as the numbers 18 and 13. But even more than that, I am not really sure what I'm going to do for my 100th post. I've got some ideas, but they're few and far between. I'm sure I'll come up with something (after all, I usually do), but if you've got some suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

This is why I'm talking about Numerology today. Because I've been orchestrating a plan to make all of these numbers coincide with a beautiful symmetry. They work together without any fights or name-calling, and I've even managed to plan out Duke Forever so that it doesn't hog all of the limelight. But in all my efforts trying to make all the numbers line up, I've forgotten all about the words for something as important to me as a 100-post milestone.
I was even considering leaving it as a Reader's Choice. You decide and I'll write. I've decided against that since I can't exactly rely on audience participation (I learned that the hard way), so if you've got something in particular that you'd like from me and this blog for the upcoming hundredth post, please, oh please leave me a comment; send me an e-mail or comment on my Google+ page or in some way contact me. Otherwise, I'll just try to figure out something else on my own . . .

That's all from me for now. Until next time I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, counting down the seconds . . .

Off the Beaten Track

Man, I have been busy. One day after I wrote Warehouse 88, I had to pack my bags and drive to New South Wales to pick up my Nanna. See, my cousin's getting hitched and she brought her fiance to Australia to show him off to the family, so folks and family were all coming up to our house to see him.
My father and I had the task of collecting my grandmother, so we spent two days driving down then back up on the Friday and Saturday. Then, not two minutes after getting out of the car, we all got wrangled into the kitchen to get to cooking for the barbeque lunch. We were then cooking for the next four hours, and every time a new member of the family arrived we roped them in and got them to cooking as well.
Once it was all cooked, we cracked open the grog and started drinking and eating, just as my cousin and her fella came around.

It was a lot of fun, but it's all quite busy. I've been here for the last two days taking care of Nanna while she's up visiting for the week or so, and tomorrow I expect I'll be running off to a picnic with the family since Wednesday is the public holiday for brisbane's Ekka.
That's the officially "unofficial" name for the Brisbane Exhibition, also known as the Royal Queensland Show by people who have no friends. It's supposed to be all about showing off Queensland's contents and culture to those that wish to see it, but in truth it's about sucking people dry by offering them fairground food, low quality theme park rides and showbags full of candy - all priced to be as expensive as they can get away with. So our family never bothers with it, instead we do our own thing with the public holiday and a picnic seemed like a good idea.

Sorry if I'm rambling on a bit today. I didn't originally have a Word of the Day or anything like that, since I didn't have the time to find one. I'm really just here to tell you what's up, and why I can't do too many more blog posts for the time being, since I'm busy with family stuff. It's only after writing it that I looked up the word, and realized how fascinating it was. So, the Word of the Day is: 'RAMBLE':

Ramble /'rambəl/ v.i. 1. To wander about in a leisurely manner. 2. (of a stream or path) to have a wandering or twisting course. 3. (of a house) to grow or be built in a haphazard way. 4. To talk or write in an aimless way without a consistent train of thought. ♦n. 5. A walk without a definite route, taken for pleasure.

I guess today's post will be self-demonstrating, like Drunk Responsibly or When the Lights go Out, since the word is "Ramble", and I'm just rambling on myself. I know that I usually ramble on a bit, but today I will even moreso since I don't have much order to this post.
Most of all, I want to mention that I'm too busy to write blog posts for a short while. Things will sort out again when I take Nanna back to New South Wales in about a week and hopefully I can fix up my damn schedule so that I can get on to regular posting, but for now I'm otherwise occupied. But beyond mentioning that, I don't have a plan for this post.

Oh, but speaking of things I wanted to mention. For Duke Forever, you may have noticed a little feature I included, but I want to bring it to your attention properly.
I don't title the posts "Duke Forever" or "Chapter 3" or anything like that, I name them for the title of each individual chapter. I thought it looked nicer this way, but it also makes it harder to find. I recently added a label, so you can find it by seeking out the label duke forever on the page, so you can click that and it'll show all of the chapters, but that's just one measure. See, from the beginning, I knew that navigating the blog would be a little odd with serialized fiction dropped throughout, since it would make it hard to find earlier chapters, so I devised a system of hyperlinks to navigate back and forth through the story.

On each chapter for Duke Forever, there's the illustration at the top of the page, then below that I write the chapter number. Either side of the written out chapter number are some "less than" and "greater than" symbols that look like brackets, something like this:

<< < Chapter # > >>

These aren't just decoration or marginalia, they're an easy way of navigating the story. I designed it similar to the navigation for webcomics, like this one. It's mostly self-explanatory, clicking "<<" returns to the very start of the story and clicking "<" goes back one chapter. From chapter 2, at the moment, these two buttons do the same thing, since "the start" and "one chapter ago" are the same thing, but in time, they will come to be more useful, especially for new readers of the blog, or old readers that want a recap.
As for ">", that goes forward one chapter, similar to its partner symbol, but the last button is what really excites me. Because, for now, when you click ">>" it goes to the latest chapter, since that makes the most sense. That's what people will want to navigate to while we're still in Volume 1 of Duke Forever.
However, I plan on doing this for a while. Duke Forever won't go away, not like Hypotheticals did. Not only is this more popular, but I'm also having a lot of fun writing them. In time, I will continue to write more chapters and fill out the first volume of this story, and when that time comes the ">>" buttons will navigate to the latest Volume of Duke Forever.

I know, I've only written two chapters so far, so perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself, but I've got high hopes for this BlogSerial thing.
The only issue here is that I don't have a computer or program to do this, I'll have to go through and change the ">>" links every time I write a new chapter, and as they say "to err is human", so I may miss a link somewhere. If you find one, please let me know through message, e-mail, comments or what have you, and I'll fix it as soon as I can; as they also say, "many hands make light work".

Other than that, I'm working on some other side projects for the blog. I still have the GameBlog interactive fiction idea and other kinds of BlogFiction that I'm working on [by working on I really mean thinking about starting to work on]. I'm not sure when I'll get around to either of those, but time will tell . . .
One day I will try to do a few more Hypotheticals, since there are some questions I collected that I really like and I would like to make a few more, but I wouldn't make many more than five or ten, since there aren't many good hypothetical questions.
I didn't realize how hard it would be to find appropriate questions, and there are a lot that I just can't write about. Most of the time, the answer to a question is: "Nothing would change, except that I would do the obvious thing." or "I don't know what would happen, because I cannot predict how the world will react to me." It's a problem that I recognized originally, but I didn't realize it would be so constraining! Sure, some of these issues could be solved with research and in-depth study, but the original concept of Hypotheticals was for them to be easy, and putting that much work into it defeats the point.
Perhaps I could do something similar, but more akin to actual self-insert fiction . . . just a thought.

Anyway, that's all from me for now. I probably won't get another post done any time soon, but I assure you that I'll get back to writing as soon as I'm able.

Until then, I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and in the meantime I'm going to see if I can find the time for my next blog post!